Spring equinox
by Tali1
Summary: AU, G-rated, original chara (NO Mary-Sue) Sequel to "Mists of time"; Creepy and sad things happen in Goten's wood


"Spring equinox"

On a cold winter's day evening, near suppertime, Czistán the shepherd, returned from his daily work. Haffel, his dog, was hot on his heels, jumping to and fro, yipping with excitement as the animal sensed they were near the small cottage that was home to Czistán and his wife, their three children, and the cattle. Albeit the shepherd was yearning for a meal and a hot fire, too, his features were dark and his strides brisk. He wasn't a man who carried his heart on his tongue and neither was he a man to speak without serious thought as to whatever he was telling, but he had reached a point in his musings where nothing he knew could offer an answer to the sorrows, which had held him captured for the last weeks.

Bumping his boots at the doorposts, Czistán entered the small hall and was greeted by his wife, who took his jacket and gave him a small kiss before she turned and headed to the kitchen where his supper was warming up, and Czistán didn't need to see her face to know that the same concern, which was robbing his sleep was shining in her hazel eyes: It was already the middle of April, and winter still wore on.

There could be hundred of answers to that problem, Czistán knew. After all, they lived in the mountains – weather always was kind of uncertain here: There had been late springs and cruel winters as well as years with hot summers and barely a snowflake in January.

But the feeling stayed that something just wasn't quite right. When he stepped out of his door, he didn't feel anything in the nature around him. It was silent as if dead. Whereas he had been always able to feel the hidden streams of power flow back and forth over the seasons, everything had ceased to move and stood perfectly still. Deep down in his core, where the memories rested, which he had gotten from his ancestors, he knew that something wasn't quite the way it should be and, although Czistán would rather have bitten his tongue than to admit it, he was afraid.

* * *

Sunlight filtered through hidden fissures, broke through the cave's darkness like pillars or was glittering myriad-coloured in crystals and small gems, which were littered in the stone walls and on the ground. It was a marvellous sight to behold: it was like hope in darkness, like music in death's deafness... But it was cold. And still. And silent.

Dread hung in the air, sorrow and loneliness waited near the entrance-hall to grope for any visitor's heart, but it was long since anyone had set foot into the wood people's den and the lone inhabitant left was as still as a stone could be. Time had never mattered to him, days could be seconds or eons; it never had any hold on him and his kind, but now he was wishing he could age like every human did and die. He already felt dead, so why not follow through?

He let out a small sigh and shifted into another position, leaned his body against another pillar of marble and was still again. Whatever sound had emitted from his lips or movements ceased mere inches from its source and nothing disturbed the ethereal silence surrounding him.

* * *

A few days later, Czistán was on his way to spring fair in Waldstadt. Of course, there hadn't been a wood near Waldstadt for several centuries - at least not since the last firs had been deforested during the industrial revolution. The magistrate and Mayor had re-planted trees in and out the city's areas, but it could never be the same like in the mountains, where some last refuges of wild, ancient wood outlasted. People knew that; they felt it.

Those were the thoughts of Czistán as he drove his hover-car down the lanes into the big, humming city. With little effort, he wove into the traffic, headed south to the exhibition-lanes and thought about that stranger whom he had found near his orchard last autumn. This man had been one from here. No, corrected the shepherd himself, this man had been from one of the biggest cities on earth, Western Capital, and he had led this biggest company on earth, Capsule Corp, and still Czistán found himself wondering, what this man might have felt, when he got lost in the woods. Was it similar to what the shepherd felt each time he came down from the mountains? Had it been worse?

With an angry shake of his head he dismissed the thought, pulled into a parking lot, and started unloading his wool. He had other problems, thank you, starting with the late spring this year down to taxes and local politics. He wouldn't waste time on trivial things like how a city-dweller was feeling in fresh air! But he didn't feel at ease.

It was later this evening, in his dim-lit hotel-room, when suddenly the questions that had lingered in his sub-consciousness broke to the surface: What if Trunks Briefs had really seen one of the woodfolk? What if they still lingered in the old wood and if so, what did they have to do with the late spring this year?

* * *

The trees around him stirred again, and he shifted on his bed of stone and tried to go back into sleep. He knew that he was doing the unthinkable, the unspeakable among his kind, but since he was the last of his kind, it didn't really mattered, did it?

There were some young birches across from where he lay, disobeying and fertile creatures which strove to grow and blossom. He quenched their attempt with a motion of his hand, then settled back against the snow-bedecked stone and closed his eyes again. His senses were sharp and his power over the wood nearly absolute, since he was the only one left, and after his will, would be no longer. In the heart of his wood, he lay still and waited for his energy to run out. Where he could hear the calling of spring, the tickling of boisterous sunrays in other trees far away, he held his in silence. No water would reach the roots, nor would warmth touch buds and tubers.

A stray tear left the corner of his eye as he ached for his friends, whom he put under such pressure, but it would be over soon he felt. His strength was waning; more trees left his grasp and with the remaining, he had problems stilling them to sleep again, but sleeping they must or his attempted suicide would be in vain. With a sigh, he turned his attention to some hazels near the edge of his realm. With slowly fading senses, he felt their buds striving to blossom, felt their roots drink water. His pale lips parted, and with the softest of voices, he spoke words of farewell to them. He heard their faint cries of anguish but knew it would be better soon; they would keep growing whilst he would shrink into nothingness.

* * *

When Czistán returned home, he was relieved to find the winter's grasp broken. Slowly, almost as if frightened, tiny buds had opened on bare twigs, and the air was balmy, though still cold. With renewed élan, he unloaded gifts for his children and quickly stepped inside, where he was greeted with excited voices and chirping. Laughing, he handed the treats over and pulled the smallest girl into a hug, when his wife came through the door, carrying a stack of wood to light the stove.

The shepherd was greeted once again with a kiss and a smile, but he discovered with a twist of his heart that her eyes still held sorrow and her features were set in straight lines. 

"Is something wrong, dear?" he asked with uncertainty. Maybe something bad had happened whilst he was gone. But she only shook her head and indicated that she wouldn't say anything while the children were still awake.

A few hours later, the grown-ups had seated themselves in the living room. Drinking hot tea and watching some show in the television, Czistán had nearly forgotten his concerns. After all, everything had seemed perfectly normal at the evening; the children were healthy, no aunt, uncle or parent had died during his absence, and so the shepherd allowed himself to drown his mounting concern. But after an hour of silence, his uneasiness broke through the surface again.

"What is concerning you, dear?" he asked his knitting wife.

She shot him a sharp glance, something between scorn and unbelieving, before she sighed – obviously getting the conclusion again, that her husband was and would always be foremost a man – and settled to that she had to explain the most simplest things to him.

"Something's wrong with the wood or rather in the wood, I'd say," she answered. Letting her work sink into her lap, she looked to the lace-covered window and seemed to lose herself in the darkness behind the glass-planes. "It just doesn't feel right..." She trailed off.

Silence returned, and Czistán thought about what his wife had said. She obviously had felt the same, but what was it, what they were feeling? Groaning, he pushed himself out of the chair and stretched his limbs. "It doesn't matter, what we're feeling. The question should be: what is it, and what can we do to change it – whatever it is," he finished somewhat lamely.

"I don't know what it is," sighed she and returned her attention to her knit-work. "Let's hope it'll get better, now, that winter's sharpness is broken."

Czistán's head whipped around as he heard that phrase, but his wife hadn't seen the movement and therefore didn't speak further. He sat down heavily and started musing, turning here and there in his memories, where he had heard that phrase again. Somewhere back in his early childhood, he felt, had they held a meaning, something true that he had long forgotten.

* * *

He wished he could see sun and blue sky again. He wished he could, once more, feel warm, balmy air upon his bare skin and sing along with flower and leaf. But he couldn't. His last hours had finally arrived and, feeling his hold slip away from wood and wild, he was dying. It had taken a long, long time for his resources to dry up, but now Goten felt the numbness arrive, for which he had been looking for days. After all, he found it easy to fade, with no humans left to believe in old myths, the only thing he had had to do was cutting his wood from life's source and joy and now, not even this was needed anymore.

Icy cold seeped through his thin vest and made him numb. He had stopped shivering hours ago and hadn't moved since then. Goten knew he was taking an easy route out of his misery, and there was a whole lot of him that was shouting not to give up so easily. And he kind of wished he could follow that comand. But there was this great, empty space inside him, and its cold fingers held his heart and soul unmercifully in its grasp. 

How much had he wished last summer, that Trunks would come back! Those blue eyes, his soft hair, fair like any fairy. Even when he knew that it was impossible that the human could have been happy here and content leading such a lonely life, Goten had still hoped for a miracle. He had even told his true name! But Trunks hadn't returned. 

Sadness was devouring him.

_Floret silva undique,_

_nah mime gesellen ist mir wê._

_Gruonet der walt allenthalben,_

_wa ist min geselle alse lange?_

_Ah!_

_Der ist geriten hinnen,_

_o wî, wer sol mich minnen?_

_Ah!_

Broken tones, not even a whisper. He lifted his hand to a last farewell to the skies he knew outside his den. Athena and Aphrodite were gone, their nests lay cold and empty. It had been long since they had circled above the trees, spying for prey, and no longer would he have joy in following their flight.

Only wind was left to whisper in the caverns his kin had inhabited for more years then humans had written history. It had been like that for many centuries, and their absence had always been a pain in Goten's soul, but there had always been another day or flower or song to distract him. But the last autumn had shown him – unmercifully and leering – how much he was deluding himself; his life wasn't happy anymore, just lonely. He had none to whom to speak, nothing to tell. He couldn't leave his ancestral country, and no one of his kind had ever visited his woods. As far as he knew, he could have been the last of magic kind for centuries. So, what did it matter?

The last trees slipped his grasp. Barely able to hear their farewell, he turned his sight inwards, asking himself if he would see his family again in their Mother's lap. He was just so tired.

* * *

Early the next morning, long before moon and stars had descended to sleep, Czistán slipped out of the house and into the nearby stables. Stealing three eggs from under the hen, he hurried out of the low hut again and nearly ran into the wood. Only when he had a few hundred yards of shrubbery and trees between himself and his home, he dared to breath louder. Quickly kneeling, he brought out a tin with paint and the eggs and, highly concentrating, he painted them the way his great-grandmother had taught him and his siblings so many decades ago.

This was silly, of course! No one had ever heard that seasons came and went with only a few whispered words and a gift to the Mother, but since the moment he had woke in the middle of the night, he hadn't been able to push this urge aside, and an urge it had become. Something in him had stirred and was now uncomfortably nagging at the borders of his mind, and the shepherd felt he would not find peace for a long time, not until he had fulfilled what his sub-consciousness told him to do.

His old bones groaned as he stemmed himself up again, but he painstakingly paid attention that no sound left his lips. He quickly gathered the gift in a small piece of silk and proceeded to march deeper into the woods. He knew he could have left the small parcel where he had stood, but since he was acting like a fool anyway, he could also bring it to a place which was more to his liking: a vast system of caverns he had known long but had never visited again after his marriage. He had always liked this place. Somehow the caves weren't so dreadful like many others were, and he had always felt an easiness there. Czistán nodded to himself and changed his direction.

'There!' The old man breathed relief as he found the hills half an hour later. Sun was already rising, and it was time, he felt, to finish his task, so he hurried on 'til he found the entrance and cautionously stepped into the shadows. How cold it was! Czistán couldn't remember to have ever felt such a cold here; it was freezing his bones. The old shepherd stepped further inside, soon shivering and clutching his thin jacket shut, but he proceeded. Had he been cautious at first, nearly frightened even, his steps soon became stronger, his gestalt straightened, and his expression became easier.

Just before the light from the entrance completely faded away, Czistán arrived in a more open space. If possible it was even colder here, but still something balmy and gentle was in the air. In the waning light, the man could make out giant pillars of white stone. It glittered and sparkled around him, and he knew that this was the right place to leave his present behind. On a moss-covered group of stones, almost looking like an alcove, he placed his gift and stepped back. Murmuring the right words, he bowed once and, without turning back, headed straight out of the caverns and home. He felt silly, and he was cold. At home, his family would already be up and might wonder, where he was, but he wouldn't tell them. A man had a right to have his secrecies, and if they were stupid, they must stay secret even more.

* * *

_Omnia Sol temperat_

_purus et subtilis,_

_novo mundo reserat_

_faciem Aprilis_

Laughing, singing, jiggling, deriding. Spring was on his march and trees and flowers broke in blossom.

_Ad Amorem properat_

_Animus herilis_

_Et iocundis imperat_

_Deus puerilis_

Dancing, treading, whirling, jumping. The young god walked over the green earth again, kissing all growing things awake on his path.

_Vias prebet solitas_

_et in tuo vere_

_fides est et probitas_

_tuum retinere_

Kissing, winking, loving, mating. Life's wheels were whirling again, and even the old could feel how their blood was getting hotter. Summer was near; Spring still there, and all things had woken from their deathlike sleep to grow again. Air and breeze smelled of power, juices were stirring and rising, animals and humans likewise drunken of love and lust. Cacophonic singing greeted from everywhere where Spring's party set their feet.

Only short did he stop as he reached the edge of an old, well-known wood. Trees and bushes were singing in tune with them though one could see that they were way behind all surrounding forests. Spring cocked his head, letting his flutes sink, as he pondered on what should have been different there, but he was a short-lived god, reborn without memory every year and so, setting his flutes again on his lips and blowing a wild tremolo, he set foot into Goten's wood.

"Dance Piccolo!"

"Sing with us, Piccolo!"

Laughing voices surrounded him, and he was laughing with them, dancing along their lines, but the laughter died on the way to his eyes, and the music couldn't reach his heart. Around him, everyone was celebrating year's newness, but the Sylph couldn't merge in their play. Too gaily, too shallow it seemed, and he yearned for deepness and another kind of truth. He was old to their meaning; being a spirit of air, breeze, and storm, he seemed changeful, but the truth was that he was stable in a way that they couldn't fathom, who lived for the season and had never seen a winter. An earnest was in his being that they feared; he had knowledge of death and other things beyond caressing rays of sunlight and opening flowers.

Close to the heart of the wood, Piccolo was suddenly struck with icy fingers. He stood still, frightened and excited by this touch in either way, and he turned automatically to see what kind of magic had reached his heart. Around him, other gods, spirits and fairies danced ecstatically along and further down the path, but he found it impossible to move on. Something was calling him.

Music and laughter was slipping further and further away, and he was in danger to be left behind, but still he stood and searched with his inner hearing, bending his senses this way and that, until he found a way into the coldness that still hung over the surrounding trees and a group of small hills not far away. The last flute-tones died away in the distance, and Piccolo was left behind under whispering oaks, which, touched by Spring's music, started to draw juice and power again from the Mother's lap. Their whispering sounded nearly hostile to his ears, and fearfully, he drew his cloak of west wind around his strong body before he searched his path along under their branches. The nearer he came to the hills, the more threatening the trees became towards him; branches swayed in his breeze, trying to smite him, and bark was splinting as the old creatures bent to reach him, but he, who was mighty among his kind, couldn't be touched by them.

They were guard-trees, Piccolo realized with a start. They were trying to protect something that was dear to them, and the Sylph found sadness stirring in him. The magic folk that had lived here must have been of a special kind when the trees were still protecting their long abandoned dwellings. Now he understood what had struck him: the presence of his kind, even if long gone and slightly different from him, had touched his soul and left an imprint on it like it had done to the woods in which he was standing.

Knowing he had nothing to fear from the guards, when he showed respect to their charge, he proceeded towards the hills, shortly after stepping under the stony roof and into the darkness that reigned here. He could instantly feel the disturbance he was causing in the still air of the place, but something else he was able to feel: some disturbance in the near end of the main hall. Piccolo walked slowly down the path, catching here and there echos of long-sung songs and happy chatter, and he was struck again as he reached an alcove where a lone figure lay as if dead.

Here was one, who was born and built to be happy and alive and yet he lay dead. His beautiful limbs had fallen lifeless and listless: the strong, bare breast was rendered still as no breath was taken. This creature, who was meant to be alive by the Mother herself, was dead. His eyes were tearing up. He couldn't remember to have ever seen anything so sad.

Taking a deep intake of air, Piccolo steeled himself for what was to come and stepped forward. Bending over the miserable creature, he felt pain of an unknown measure pierce his heart. The faded inhabitant of the wood had been a beauty. Darkness and light had never been seen mixed so fair and pleasing in a living creature's countenance, and Piccolo felt the strong lines of his face soften as he stood there and regarded the longing expression, which was still on the youth's face.

He felt his heart tear. What if he had been faster to come here?

Feeling - like a deadly wounded animal - a lethal wound in his heart, he laid down and rested his cheek on the youth's forehead and was still. 'Would he have been able to prevent this from happening?' he asked himself and felt that he had lost something invaluable. His hand rested across the other's chest, and the other was absentmindedly caressing through soft locks. An old tune came to his mind, seldomly sung now since it was sad, and now he understood it's true meaning for the first time: it was meant for him and this sad youth to be sung together.

_Chume, chum, geselle min,_

_ih enbite harte din,_

_ih enbite harte din,_

_chume, chum, geselle min._

_Suzer rosenvarwer munt, _

_chum un mache mich gesunt,_

_chum un mache mich gesunt,_

_suzer rosenvarwer munt._

And lifting his head as he sang, at the end of the song, Piccolo bent down to chastily press his lips to the soft mouth, stealing a kiss that couldn't heal him anymore but would be a farewell to the one, who could have become his lover.

Closing his eyes in pain, he slipped from the moss-bed and turned away as he was stopped by a touch at his hand and a soft voice. "Don't leave me, yet, stranger!" pleaded the youth, and Piccolo felt his heart pierced by the other's melodic voice and sincere look.

"You are not dead?" he breathed joyous, stepping to the bed again and enclosed the other's appendage with his hands. Thoughts, prayers, snippets of songs and hope were mixing together in his head, while the younger one tried to sit up, his wondering gaze never straying from Piccolo's eyes, who was already lost in the hazel depths.

"Your song was it, that brought me back," he stated simply. "I have known it for a long time, but I had never known that it was meant for me." And softly singing, he repeated it.

_Chume, chum, geselle min_

_ih enbite harte din_

_chum un mache mich gesunt_

_suzer rosenvarwer munt._

And so they did, over and over again.

**~ fin ~**

**songtranslation**

Goten's song

The wood is everywhere in bloom

I long for my lover.

The wood is everywhere in green

Where is my lover so long?

He has ridden away from here;

Alas, who shall love me?

Spring song

Soothes all things the sun

Pure and fine;

Sewn anew is the world's

Face in April

Towards love hastens

The master's heart

And over happy folk rules

The boy-god

He (it) offers ways we know

And in our springtime

It is faithful and right

To keep your lover

Piccolo's song

Come, come, my lover

I entreat you sore

I entreat you sore

Come, come, my lover

Sweet rosy-hued mouth

Come and heal me

Come and heal me

Sweet rosy-hued mouth

Song one and three are parts from "On the green" from "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. The second song is also from "Carmina Burana", but from "In Springtime". The translations are from the CD-booklet and it's therefore not my fault if they should be wrong (and they do sound so sometimes...).

Disclaimer: DBZ and its respective Characters belong to Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation; "carmina burana" belonged to Carl Orff and is now property of someone other than me. Of course I do not intend on making money with this story and so on.


End file.
